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What does a Principal Software Engineer do?

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Re: What does a Principal Software Engineer do?

#51

Post by activistee »

amznbyebyebye wrote: post #36
activistee wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Software Engineer, I consider it my obligation to ensure that people across an organization understand that it is not normal and not acceptable for a Software Engineer to be rude, angry, grumpy or dismissive. The genius mystique must be defeated. I behave as an activist employee: if there's a nerd bringing shame upon nerd kind, I make sure to tackle it head-on. I implore everyone to be activist employees. A nerd…

Thank you for your service!! We need more of you. The problem is where I work these toxic characters are supported and enabled by equally toxic leadership and executives.

I've found that the shield toxic people have around them is often a self-fulfilling prophecy. Leadership can be in a difficult position, because their interface to the people suffering the toxic element is often through the toxic element -- and the same is true in reverse -- which masks the problem. Leadership might think "this person is unpleasant to work with" but also think "their team is delivering so they must be doing something right!" which a team can perceive as protection or an endorsement from leadership, but can be challenged quite easily by demonstrating that their behaviour is harming the team.

Even if you're confident they do have immunity, and that there's no way to pierce through their immunity, there's still opportunities to have a positive impact. A great place to start is with junior employees: every time there's an incident, reach out to them and let them know that this behaviour isn't normal or acceptable. Junior employees are in the worst position: they don't know what is normal and what is not. As a senior employee, you can say with confidence whether behaviour is normal or not, and so just saying "this is not normal" can make the world of difference to someone junior. Also, depending on the organization, reporting incidents can be useful even if it feels like you're just shouting into the void: you never know when these reports will come in useful.

Re: What does a Principal Software Engineer do?

#52

Post by thrwawayhack_ »

dkarl wrote: post #5

Always keep in mind that sometimes the "principal engineer" title is just a company's only way of hiring a senior engineer because their pay bands are so far below market rate. Don't let a description of a Google principal engineer scare you away from inquiring and applying for principal engineer positions at other companies. Source: have been that person.

My friend is a "Vice President of Engineering" at a fintech company. It's the lowest rung on their engineering ladder.

Re: What does a Principal Software Engineer do?

#54

Post by lanstin »

lawn wrote: post #13
darthrupert wrote: post #7

Same things as senior but more. Source: I've been one. Senior and principal prefixes are there to provide respect in orgs that rely on titles for respect (possibly a sign of toxicity), or a way to explain to HR why someone's salary is higher.

> or a way to explain to HR why someone's salary is higher. This is exactly how my company motivated it when I asked for a higher salary.

A bit of a problem tho for most orgs. If you can only pay more money by promoting people, the job market is suddenly so hot people will leave if you don’t get them more money, but it is a bit silly to just promote every one, and there is a useful distinction to be had between people whose work is mostly heads down coding vs people whose work is also mentoring and communicating technical views to larger numbers of people. The words around promotions usually seem to be about expanding influence and affecting larger numbers of coworkers. That is useful, and fun if you like it, but the purely awesome coders might also need big raises when job market spikes.

Re: What does a Principal Software Engineer do?

#55

Post by Kranar »

rwmj wrote: post #34

PSEs are really earning $800k per year?

In total compensation yes. That means it usually includes stock and at that level about 50-60% of your compensation will be stock.

Look at https://www.levels.fyi to compare companies, but yes overall 800k to over 1 million is quite common for a Principal and typically it requires about 10-15 years of experience.

Re: What does a Principal Software Engineer do?

#57

Post by andi999 »

thrwawayhack_ wrote: post #52
dkarl wrote: post #5

Always keep in mind that sometimes the "principal engineer" title is just a company's only way of hiring a senior engineer because their pay bands are so far below market rate. Don't let a description of a Google principal engineer scare you away from inquiring and applying for principal engineer positions at other companies. Source: have been that person.

My friend is a "Vice President of Engineering" at a fintech company. It's the lowest rung on their engineering ladder.

Probably because their engineering team has a bus factor of two?

Re: What does a Principal Software Engineer do?

#58

Post by vultour »

thrwawayhack_ wrote: post #52
dkarl wrote: post #5

Always keep in mind that sometimes the "principal engineer" title is just a company's only way of hiring a senior engineer because their pay bands are so far below market rate. Don't let a description of a Google principal engineer scare you away from inquiring and applying for principal engineer positions at other companies. Source: have been that person.

My friend is a "Vice President of Engineering" at a fintech company. It's the lowest rung on their engineering ladder.

Vice Presidents at large financial institutions are a joke. Coming from any other industry you'd think it's some sort of executive position. Nope, just a random senior software engineer 8 levels down on the corporate ladder. To be fair the first 6 levels (all the way to the CEO) are all "Managing Directors".

Re: What does a Principal Software Engineer do?

#59

Post by ignoramous »

jason-phillips wrote: post #4
fasteddie31003 wrote: post #2

When my partner and I first meet we were both senior engineers at larger SF tech companies. Three years later she is a principle engineer and I stayed a senior engineer. She and I agree that everything past a senior engineer is political. She is much better and handling the complex social dynamics of the management class. It's kinda a game of finding the least common denominator that works best by not pissing off peo…

> That often means the decisions you make you know are not the most optimal, but the most politically optimal. Not intended to quibble, but to me that smacks of the dreaded "mid-level management" tier. As a lead or principle, I describe what I do as being a "fire-and-forget resource". I build everything myself and don't require supervision. I will deliver regardless and am also able to justify my decisions. People se…

> Not intended to quibble, but to me that smacks of the dreaded "mid-level management" tier.

Reminds me of the classic: https://www.ribbonfarm.com/the-gervais-principle/

Re: What does a Principal Software Engineer do?

#60

Post by micro_cam »

dkarl wrote: post #44
pc86 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone whose first job title was "Assistant Director of IT," and who did nothing but write really bad PHP for a couple hours every day, this tracks with my experience. It also made interviewing harder because if you get a resume from someone with one job they've had for two years, and that job is Assistant Director, you're probably - rightfully - trashing that resume. I eventually learned to just change the title…

At one of my jobs, all the developers were given the title "Member of Technical Staff" because our boss had worked at a particle accelerator (he had a PhD in physics) and that's what the scientists running experiments had on their badges. He did it for morale, and it probably did make us feel a bit fancier while we were writing Grails and GWT code.

I think this is pretty common at early stage YC companies. At least the one I started at did this until they needed to give us fancy titles to impress investors.
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